Last Updated on April 24, 2019 by LawEuro
FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 46091/13
Wiesław SOCHACZEWSKI
against Poland
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 12 February 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Ksenija Turković, President,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
Pauliine Koskelo, judges,
and Renata Degener, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 24 May 2013,
Having regard to the unilateral declaration submitted by the respondent Government and to the observations submitted by the parties,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Wiesław Sochaczewski, is a Polish national who was born in 1960 and lives in Kraśnik. He was represented before the Court by Mr P. Rał, a lawyer practising in Warsaw.
2. The Polish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms J. Chrzanowska, and subsequently by Mr J. Sobczak, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. The period of the applicant’s detention
4. The applicant has been serving an imprisonment sentence since 25 February 2002. His punishment is scheduled to end on 25 February 2027.
5. In the period relevant for the present application – that is to say between 8 September 2004 and 5 November 2009 – the applicant was detained in the following prisons:
(1) from 8 September until 8 November 2004 in Włodawa Prison,
(2) from 8 November until 15 December 2004 in Lublin Prison,
(3) from 15 December 2004 until 18 January 2005 in Włodawa Prison and
(4) from 18 January 2005 until the judgment of 29 August 2011 in Chełm Prison.
2. Conditions of the applicant’s detention
6. The applicant, without indicating the exact dates, submitted that throughout his entire detention he had been committed to overcrowded cells in which the space per person had been below the Polish statutory minimum standard of 3 sq. m. Other elements regarding living and sanitary conditions had been inadequate.
7. The Government did not make any submissions as regards the conditions in which the applicant had been detained.
8. The domestic courts did not make any findings on the merits concerning the applicant’s detention prior to 23 August 2007. It was established that the applicant had not been detained in overcrowded cells after 5 November 2009. The domestic courts did not exclude the possibility of overcrowding between 23 August 2007 and 5 November 2009, but no details were established.
9. The official statistics published by the Polish Prison Service reveal the following rates of overcrowding between 25 February 2002 and 5 November 2009 in the prisons concerned: Krasnystaw Prison ‑ 5% from February 2002 until January 2003; Lublin, Włodawa and Chełm Prisons ‑ 10% in 2003, and 9% in 2004. According to those statistics, in Lublin Prison (where the applicant was detained in July and August 2004) there had been no overcrowding. The overcrowding rates for Chełm Prison had been 12% in 2005, 14% in 2006, 20% in 2007, 15% in 2008 and 10% from 1 January until November 2009.
10. In its Orchowski judgment the Court, referring to the Polish Constitutional Court’’s judgment of 26 May 2008 and to the submissions of various State authorities, established that overcrowding in Polish prisons and remand centres had been of a structural nature from 2000 until at least mid‑2008(see Orchowski v. Poland, no. 17885/04, § 147, 22 October 2009).
11. As found by the domestic courts, the remaining elements of the living and sanitary conditions and the quality of food had met the statutory standards. The applicant had had one hot shower per week and one hour of outdoor exercise per day.
3. Civil proceedings against the State Treasury
12. On 23 August 2010 the applicant brought a civil action for infringement of his personal rights on account of the inadequate living conditions in all prisons since 1993. He claimed PLN 1,000,000 Polish zlotys (PLN – approximately 250,000 euros (EUR)) in compensation.
13. He lodged an application to be granted legal aid. On 10 May 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court dismissed his application, finding that the applicant was fully able to represent himself.
14. On 29 August 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) dismissed the applicant’s action, holding that as regards his detention before 23 August 2007 his claim for the protection of his personal rights had become time-barred and that as regards the period between 23 August 2007 and 29 August 2011 the applicant had failed to prove that he had been affected by overcrowding. It confirmed, however, that there had been a general problem with overcrowding before 5 November 2009 but held that the sole fact of being detained in an overcrowded cell had not necessarily led to an infringement of the applicant’s personal rights. The court concluded that it was the applicant’s obligation to submit evidence that would prove that a violation of his rights had occurred.
15. On 17 October 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court served the applicant with the reasoning of its judgment and with information about the right to appeal, which read as follows:
“You have the right to appeal against the served judgment. An appeal should be submitted to the Court of Appeal in Warsaw through …… the Warsaw Regional Court, which issued the judgment, within a time-limit of two weeks, calculated from the date of the serving of the judgment. Sending the appeal by post is equivalent to submitting [in person] it to the court”.
16. On 2 November 2011 the applicant appealed against the Warsaw Regional Court’s judgment of 29 August 2011 and lodged a second application to be granted a legal-aid lawyer, arguing that he could not afford a lawyer of his own choice and that he did not have enough legal knowledge to represent himself. On 17 November 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s application, holding that it was not necessary to grant legal aid.
17. The applicant lodged only one copy of his appeal. Accordingly, on 18 November 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court issued an order instructing him to rectify the procedural shortcomings in respect of his appeal by lodging a copy thereof within a time-limit of seven days. The order was served on the applicant on 25 November 2011. On 28 November 2011 he submitted a document entitled titled “Appeal” which did not contain the exact wording of the original appeal.
18. On 15 December 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court rejected the applicant’s appeal for failure to rectify its procedural shortcomings. The court found that the applicant’s original appeal and the document that he had submitted on 28 November 2011 differed in their respective contents. The applicant did not appeal against the decision and it became final.
19. On 4 January 2012 the applicant lodged an application for leave to appeal out of time, but on 28 March 2012 the Warsaw Regional Court dismissed that application and again rejected his appeal. The applicant’s interlocutory appeal against the above decision was rejected on 29 May 2012 by the Warsaw Court of Appeal because the applicant had sent the interlocutory appeal to the Regional Court instead of sending it to the Court of Appeal. The court noted that the applicant had been properly instructed as to how to lodge an interlocutory appeal. The final decision of the Warsaw Court of Appeal was served on the applicant on 18 April 2013.
B. Relevant domestic law
1. Conditions of detention
20. A detailed description of the relevant domestic law and practice concerning general rules governing conditions of detention in Poland and the domestic remedies available to detainees alleging that the conditions of their detention were inadequate are set out in the Court’’s pilot judgments in the cases of Orchowski (cited above, §§ 75-85), and Norbert Sikorski v. Poland (no. 17599/05, §§ 45-88, 22 October 2009). More recent developments are described in the Court’’s decision in the case of Łatak v. Poland (no. 52070/08), issued on 12 October 2010 (see §§ 25-54).
2. Access to court
21. Article 394 of the Code of Civil Proceedings, in so far as relevant, provides as follows:
“An interlocutory appeal (zażalenie) may be lodged with the court of second instance against … the first instance court’’s decision terminating the proceedings …”.
COMPLAINTS
22. The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention that he had been detained for over five years in overcrowded cells in various prisons. He also raised a complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that his access to court had been restricted because the court of second instance, being excessively formalistic, had rejected his appeal on procedural grounds.
THE LAW
A. Alleged violation of Article 3 of the Convention
23. The applicant complained of the inadequate conditions of his detention, and in particular of overcrowding. He relied on Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
24. By a letter of 2 April 2015 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make a unilateral declaration with a view to resolving the issue raised by the application under Article 3 of the Convention. They furthermore requested the Court to strike out this part of the application, in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention.
The declaration provides as follows:
“ … The Government hereby wish to express – by way of a unilateral declaration – their acknowledgement of the fact that the applicant has been subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3.
Simultaneously, the Government declare that they are ready to pay the applicant the sum of PLN 22,000, which they consider to be reasonable in the light of the Court’s case law in similar cases …… The sum referred to above, which is to cover any pecuniary and non‑pecuniary damage, as well as costs and expenses, will be free of any taxes that may be applicable. It will be payable within three months of the date of the notification of the decision taken by the Court, pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the Convention. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it, from the expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period, plus three percentage points …
The Government would respectfully suggest that the above declaration might be accepted by the Court as “any other reason” justifying the striking out of the case of the Court’s list of cases, as referred to in Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention … ”.
25. In his letter of 27 May 2015 the applicant referred to some of the Government’s submissions; however, he did not comment on the Government’s unilateral declaration.
26. The Court reiterates that Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified, under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court in particular to strike a case out of its list if:
“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.
27. The Court has established in a number of cases, including those brought against Poland, its practice concerning conditions of detention (see the cases of Orchowski, Norbert Sikorski and Łatak, all cited above).
28. Having regard to the nature of the admissions contained in the Government’s declaration, as well as the amount of compensation proposed – which is consistent with the amounts awarded in similar cases ‑ the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of this part of the application (Article 37 § 1 (c)).
29. Moreover, in the light of the above considerations, particularly given the clear and extensive case-law on the topic, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights, as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto, does not require it to continue the examination of this part of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).
30. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the complaint under Article 3 out of the list of cases.
B. Alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
31. The applicant complained of a violation of his right of access to court, as guaranteed under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations … everyone is entitled to a fair … hearing … by [a] … tribunal …”
32. However, having regard to the facts of the case, especially the fact that (i) the civil proceedings complained of constituted a remedy that had to be exhausted for the purpose of lodging a complaint under Article 3 of the Convention and (ii) by way of the Government’s unilateral declaration, the applicant is granted compensation for the violation of his rights under that Article, the Court considers that the main legal questions raised in the present application have been addressed and that there is no need to give a separate ruling on the remaining complaint (see, among other authorities, Kamil Uzun v. Turkey, no. 37410/97, § 64, 10 May 2007, and Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], no. 47848/08, § 165, ECHR 2014).
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to strike the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention out of its list.
Holds that it is not necessary to examine the admissibility and merits of the complaint under Article 6 of the Convention.
Done in English and notified in writing on 14 March 2019.
Renata Degener Ksenija Turković
Deputy Registrar President
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